Isolationism — which is popular with some people even here on FR — is and was a political view, and was the root cause of the widespread popularity of Alex Hrdlicka’s relentless attacks upon the idea of precolumbian contact. The fact is, he was an overbearing a-hole.
It’s also a fact that he picked off a lot of low-hanging fruit(cakes) who claimed that this or that culture in the Americas *had to be* related to some better-known Old World culture.
It’s also a fact that there was contact, and lots of it, unrelated to each other for the most part, and that Columbus went to Iceland to find out about the lands to the west. IOW, to say that either one was all correct and the other was all incorrect is an unsupportable position to take.
Clovis first has been, at best, a hypothesis. It’s devilishly hard to prove anything through the absence of contradictory evidence. I’ve always had a rule of thumb that anything will prove to be more complicated than is first thought. Incontestable conclusions are usually the product of tenured professors guarding their turf.
People were able to get to Australia some sixty thousand years ago at least. The lower sea levels through the various ice ages including the recent hypothesis on Beringia leave a lot of room for speculation. DNA studies would seem to limit the European influences, however.
America B.C.A fascinating letter I received from a Shoshone Indian who had been traveling in the Basque country of Spain tells of his recognition of Shoshone words over there, including his own name, whose Shoshone meaning proved to match the meaning attached to a similar word by the modern Basques. Unfortunately I mislaid this interesting letter. If the Shoshone scholar who wrote to me should chance to see these words I hope he will forgive me and contact me again. The modern Basque settlers of Idaho may perhaps bring forth a linguist to investigate matters raised in this chapter. [p 173]
by Barry Fell
(1976)
find it in a nearby library